India’s missing children problem points to a grim reality for girls

We are failing our children, and we are failing our girls.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime in India 2024 report, a total of 1,87,702 cases of crimes against children were registered across India in 2024. 

This means India records over 514 crimes against children every day—more than 21 every hour, or nearly one every three minutes.

The number of missing children has also increased in the one-year period. 

The report says, “A total of 98,375 children (22,768 male, 75,603 female, and 4 transgender) were reported missing in 2024. The number of children missing has increased by 7.8% in 2024 from 91,296 children missing during 2023.”

These numbers point to a troubling reality: India’s missing children crisis is increasingly becoming a case of adolescent girls. It has become a deeply gendered child protection crisis.

According to an analysis of NCRB data by child rights NGO Child Relief and You (CRY), Maharashtra presents a particularly concerning picture. The state recorded the highest number of crimes against children in 2024, with 24,171 cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 22,222 and Madhya Pradesh at 21,908.

The state reported 3,495 missing children in 2024, with girls accounting for 57.1% of the total. Maharashtra also had an active missing children pool of 5,540 cases, including unresolved cases from previous years. Of the children reported missing during 2024, 2,057 were girls, and 1,438 were boys. The broader active pool of missing children included 3,165 girls, 2,372 boys, and 3 transgender children.

Even though the state traced 3,737 children, 1,803 remained untraced at the year-end.

West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, and Delhi together accounted for more than half of the national pool of missing children in 2024.

Keeping our girls safe

How can we keep our children, and especially our girls, safe? 

The rising share of missing girls raises questions about whether child protection systems are adequately addressing gender-specific vulnerabilities. 

Under the Ministry of Women and Social Development’s Mission Vatsalya, the government created a unified digital platform to support children in difficult circumstances, including those who are missing, orphaned, abandoned, or surrendered. The platform integrates multiple child protection systems to help map vulnerable children with relevant government services and institutions, ensuring better care, protection, and rehabilitation. 

This consolidation brought together four previously separate portals—TrackChild for missing and found children, CARINGS for adoption, Integrated Child Protection Scheme for scheme monitoring, and Khoya-Paya, a citizen-facing platform for reporting missing and sighted children—into a single digital ecosystem. 

The government also has a 24x7 Child Helpline, the 1098 service for children, run in coordination with state and district functionaries and integrated with the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS-112) helpline

of the Ministry of Home Affairs. According to news reports, nearly 94,000 calls were made to the child helpline in Delhi last year. 

Need for prevention

With girls accounting for a larger share of the missing children, interventions must begin with prevention.

Schools and colleges should be at the forefront of keeping children safe. There should be a robust counselling system in every school to track early signs of distress like withdrawal, absenteeism, emotional changes, or conflict at home.

With children increasingly spending significant time online and on social media, digital safety has become a critical concern for child protection. 

While traditional systems have largely focused on threats such as abduction and trafficking, adolescent girls today face newer risks, including online grooming, emotional manipulation, cyber blackmail, and deceptive relationships that can quickly spill into the offline world. 

Both children and parents need greater awareness of these dangers, alongside practical education on recognising red flags, practising safe online behaviour, and knowing when and how to seek help. 

For girls to be truly safe, coordinated and sustained action is needed between state authorities, child protection systems, and the police to ensure swift intervention. But more than that, we must ensure stronger prevention mechanisms and a safer environment to protect our girls from every harm.